Nigerian officials: 'District 9' not welcome here

By BASHIR ADIGUN, Associated Press Writer

ABUJA, Nigeria – One of the summer's biggest blockbusters — a sci-fi morality tale about aliens and apartheid — is not welcome in Nigeria because of its portrayal of Nigerians as gangsters and cannibals, Nigeria's information minister said Saturday.

Information Minister Dora Akunyili has asked movie houses in the capital of Abuja to stop screening "District 9" because the South Africa-based sci-fi movie about aliens and discrimination makes Nigerians look bad.

"We have directed that they should stop public screening of the film," she said. "We are not happy about it because it portrays Nigeria in bad light."

Akunyili said she has asked Sony for an apology and wants them to edit out references to Nigeria and to the name of the main Nigerian gangster Obesandjo, whose name closely resembles that of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

"We have written to the producer and distributor of the film, Sony Entertainment, expressing our displeasure and demanded an apology," she said. "We have asked that the areas where Nigeria and Obasanjo are mentioned should be edited from the film."

She and other government officials first saw the movie Wednesday during a private screening.

In one scene, Obesandjo tries to cut off and eat the arm of the film's protagonist, in an attempt to gain his supernatural powers. In others, Nigerian prostitutes are seen courting alien customers.

The film's portrayal of Nigerians has also drawn the ire of critics and bloggers, and has spawned a Facebook page called "Nigerians Offended by 'District 9,'" which had 57 members on Saturday.

Corlize Luttig, marketing manager for the South African cinema chain Ster-Kinekor, who represent Sony in South Africa, said they had no comment on the request by Akunyili. Ster-Kinekor does not distribute to Nigeria, she said.

Luttig said they were still waiting for comment from Sony's head office in Los Angeles.

"District 9" tells the story of an alien ship that mysteriously comes to hover over the South African city of Johannesburg. Its inhabitants are separated from the human population and segregated into a walled area known as District 9. But after nearly 30 years, government officials aim to relocate the extraterrestrials, with disastrous results.

The film is first feature from commercial and music-video director Neill Blomkamp, who co-wrote the script with Terri Tatchell. The film, which features a cast of mostly unknown South African actors, got its big-name backing from producer and "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson.

The film brought in some US$37 million (euro25.16 million) during its U.S. debut weekend in August. In its five-week run at U.S. theaters, it has brought in an estimated US$108,000,000 (euro73,444,406.66), according to studio estimates.

Pakistan's security gains contrast Afghan turmoil

By ROBERT KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD – A successful army offensive, a shift in public opinion against the militants and the killing of top Taliban leaders have given grounds for cautious optimism in Pakistan as progress across the border in Afghanistan appears stalled amid spiraling violence and post-election turmoil.

The Obama administration has made it clear it sees victory in the fight against Islamist extremism as dependent on successes in both South Asian nations. Forging a common strategy for "AfPak," as the region is now dubbed in Washington, is a key priority.

Five months ago, nuclear-armed Pakistan was seen by some as on the verge of collapse, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying the country was "abdicating" to the Taliban as the movement spread from its stronghold close to the Afghan border to the northwest Swat Valley and beyond.

To the relief of the West, the army moved forcefully against the Swat militants in April in a campaign that thrived with public support. Last month, the head of the Pakistani Taliban was killed in a U.S. missile strike, and questions remain whether its new leader will be able to maintain the group's ability to launch large-scale terrorist attacks.

Still, no one is saying overall victory is in sight. In particular, the tribal region of Waziristan remains an al-Qaida and Taliban haven despite past army efforts to clear it. On Friday, a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-laden vehicle into a hotel in the northwestern town of Kohat, killing more than 30 and wounding dozens of others.

"Clearly there are victories but there are still a lot of Taliban and there are still a lot of battles to come," said Kamran Bokhari, Middle East and South Asia director for U.S.-based global intelligence company Stratfor. "But for now the government still has the upper hand."

The signs of progress come as Pakistani leader Asif Ali Zardari prepares for talks on Thursday with President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in New York on how international donors can best support the country's democratically elected government.

Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, said the public opinion shift against the Taliban combined with the political consensus on tackling the threat were "major factors for visible improvement in security" in the country.

Deadly attacks on major urban centers like the massive truck bombing on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad a year ago and the commando-style assault against the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in March have decreased since the Swat Valley offensive, though near-daily violence has continued elsewhere.

Bokhari says the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan has been left in disarray after the clearing of insurgents from the valley and surrounding areas in July, as well as the Aug. 5 killing of its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in a CIA missile strike.

Further successes include the reported deaths of the al-Qaida operations chief in Pakistan and a top Uzbek militant in U.S. drone strikes in the northwest earlier this month, and the killing of 10 Taliban fighters attempting to infiltrate Swat's main city Mingora on Thursday.

Improved intelligence-sharing and coordination among Pakistan, the U.S. and Afghanistan have aided the effort, Bokhari said.

While the Pakistani military has at least temporarily gained the upper hand, the security situation in neighboring Afghanistan has deteriorated with increased roadside bombings, suicide attacks and ambushes. Heightened counterinsurgency efforts by the U.S., NATO and the Afghan government have so far failed to make much headway there, analysts said.

Bokhari said while "the Pakistanis have gotten their act together," efforts in Afghanistan by the U.S., NATO and the Afghan government appear "to be in disarray."

Political turmoil in Afghanistan after the Aug. 20 presidential election amid allegations of vote-fraud is also clouding perceptions of the future there. While the government in Pakistan is unpopular, the political scene has been relatively stable since Zardari became president a year ago, allowing it to concentrate on counterinsurgency operations.

Imtiaz Gul, chairman of the independent Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine last week "it's time for cautious optimism" for Pakistan, noting the interception of dozens of suicide bombers in the northwest and a drop in attacks elsewhere.

Bokhari said the uncertainty in strategy and cold feet among allies in Afghanistan has emboldened the Taliban there, and it remains unclear if the raging insurgency can be put down even with the deployment of more U.S. forces, which is now being considered in Washington.

"Even if you have all the troops you need, is it still a battle that can be won? Ultimately history has shown that Afghanistan — because of its geography and demography — is not something you can impose a military solution on," Bokhari said.

An Iwo Jima Relic Binds Generations

FOR many of his 85 years, Franklin W. Hobbs III has managed to distill good fortune from bad luck. Orphaned at 10, he wound up in the care of loving — and wealthy — grandparents. After World War II snatched him from Harvard, the G. I. Bill sent him back for a master’s in business administration. Rocky moments in his career often led to lucrative, fulfilling opportunities.

And so it was on Iwo Jima in the winter of 1945.

Mr. Hobbs, an untested corporal in the Army Signal Corps, doubted he would survive the barrage of mortar shells and gunfire awaiting him on the Japanese island’s besieged beach. Then he met a streetwise Detroit schoolteacher named Schnarr, who tossed four words his way: “Stick with me, Frank.” The unlikely pair clambered off the boat together and stepped past scores of slain and wounded Marines.

“I had never seen a dead person before,” Mr. Hobbs recalled in a recent interview. “It was awful. They were in the water. They were on the beach.”

His gun had slipped into the sea, so he bent down and scooped a weapon from one of those killed. Then he and Schnarr, on orders to stay alive long enough to set up communications, dug a hole off the beach where they stayed, ducking rounds of fire and eating raw bacon, for two days. When the fighting moved farther inland, they got to work laying wire.

Driving a truck a week later, Mr. Hobbs stumbled on a Japanese soldier, with no visible wounds, lying dead near a cave. The man wore a helmet and a military jacket. A white envelope peeked out of his chest pocket. Mr. Hobbs, then 21, opened the envelope to find a child’s colorful drawing — of youngsters lined up for an air-raid drill with buckets and padded garb — and a photograph of a baby. He asked an intelligence officer nearby if he could keep it.

“I thought I would like to take it home, as a souvenir, to remember I have been in this battle,” Mr. Hobbs said. “I don’t know why I did it, other than I saw it there and I thought that was an interesting thing to get.”

For more than six decades, he largely kept the envelope, the drawing and the picture — and the war — out of his mind. He was not a man given to ruminating over uncomfortable memories.

Years later, Mr. Hobbs’s wife, Marge, stumbled across the envelope. Moved by its simplicity and its World War II pedigree, she framed the drawing, and, belying her frugal nature, put a second piece of glass on the back side to protect the envelope and the photo. It hung for years in the bedroom of their youngest son, who thought maybe his mother had drawn it in kindergarten.

•

Matsuji Takegawa never met his younger daughter; she was born after he left to fight in what the Japanese called the Pacific War, so he asked his wife to name her Yoko, which means “ocean child.”

As a girl growing up in Sanjo City, Japan, and even as an adult, Yoko Takegawa had no curiosity about his death or life. She preferred not to think about him at all, other than being grateful for one thing: His government pension paid for her schooling.

Yoko had always dreamed of going to America, but the only Americans she knew in Sanjo City were missionaries. So in 1973, at 28, she left Japan and came to New York to spread the word about the Unification Church.

Ms. Takegawa wound up in Albany, married and had a daughter of her own, Keiichi, or “blessed one.” But life did not always go smoothly. Yoko divorced, and had to fend for herself financially. She settled in northern New Jersey in 1986, and eventually bought a tiny apartment in Fort Lee. Now 65, Ms. Takegawa hopes to retire soon from her job as vice president of Kokoro International, a small business selling Japanese-themed promotional items.

A year ago, Yoko’s older sister, Chie Takegawa, called from Japan with unexpected news. Sanjo City officials had come to Chie’s house with photocopies of an old envelope, a photograph and a child’s drawing. Chie recognized the drawing at once. It was hers, set aside for her father after her second-grade teacher had praised it. She recognized the photo, too: her little sister, Yoko.

The items, the city official explained, had belonged to their father, Matsuji, who the family knew had died in the Battle of Iwo Jima. A Japanese-American woman from Connecticut had brought in the photocopies, and the officials had tracked down Chie using the address on the envelope, though she had moved to a different neighborhood. An American veteran, a man who had fought on Iwo Jima all those years ago, was searching for the Takegawa family because he wished to return the mementos.

Later, after Yoko Takegawa had hung up with her sister in Sanjo City and had telephoned this stranger in Connecticut, it began to sink in. Her father had held her image near his heart during the battle. This realization lessened a hurt she never knew she harbored and softened a sadness that had hardened long ago.

“My daddy carried that letter with my picture in his body, in his bosom,” she said in a recent interview at her home. “I felt something, a spirit, come down in my body. This is treasure, a treasure that carried so much love to me. Before, I go to school with his money. But now, he sends his love to me.”

“Now I feel as if my daddy is here,” Ms. Takegawa said, gesturing around her small apartment, chockablock with Japanese ornaments. “I felt as if my father guided me to come to the United States to meet Mr. Hobbs.”

•

A strong man who made a habit of making children laugh, Matsuji Takegawa earned his keep by running a liquor store. He aspired to something more, something novel — manufacturing plastic, perhaps.

Then his draft notice arrived, and Mr. Takegawa felt his spirit crack, family members said. It would be his third tour of combat. And luck, as all soldiers know, is an unreliable companion.

He was 36 when Mr. Hobbs came across his body lying by the cave.

Mr. Hobbs, who always wanted to go into business, stayed eight months on Iwo Jima, cleaning up and laying down communications equipment, rarely mulling over the grim toll of the battle: nearly 7,000 Americans killed, nearly 20,000 more wounded; about 21,000 Japanese dead.

“It seemed to me it was a terrible waste for just that little island,” Mr. Hobbs said in an interview at his home in Chestnut Hill, Mass. “I also realized how terrible war is, and how people die for really not a heck of a lot.”

When Japan surrendered, Mr. Hobbs sailed home, his optimism and zest for life intact. In what would become a lifelong habit of looking ahead and not back, he plunged into building a new world. He married Marge and found a job at a garment factory that made women’s slips. Later, with a Harvard M.B.A., he turned his attention to salvaging small, troubled companies, usually at the behest of banks.

“I never mentioned Iwo Jima,” he said of the decades after the war. “You don’t talk about it, and I was busy trying to make a living.”

Over time, four children arrived, and the family settled into a house in Concord, Mass. The colorful Japanese drawing hung once again on the wall, with Yoko Takegawa’s picture and the envelope carefully placed behind a second piece of glass to protect them.

“I didn’t know a kid had drawn it,” said Mr. Hobbs’s daughter, Dr. Helen Hobbs, 57, an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. “I thought it was just a piece of art. I knew the picture from top to bottom, left side to right side. But I never really thought about where it came from.”

Two years ago, Mr. Hobbs divorced and married a woman from Greenwich, Conn., who is also known as Marge. As she went about organizing Mr. Hobbs’s study in Chestnut Hill, a Boston suburb, Mrs. Hobbs came across the framed drawing lying on his desk. She turned it over, and found the envelope and the baby picture.

She asked her new husband about it, and with Iwo Jima a lifetime past, he told her the story.

“Did you ever think of giving it back to the family?” Mrs. Hobbs asked.

“I would like to do that,” Mr. Hobbs replied. “My God, after all these years, they might like to see it. It’s probably the last letter their father ever got.”

Mr. Hobbs knew how it felt to lose a parent at a young age. His mother died of blood poisoning when he was 8, his father two years later of a burst appendix. Chances were the dead Japanese soldier he had seen on Iwo Jima was somebody’s father. Perhaps the baby in the photograph or the child who had drawn the picture had shared his own sense of grief and loss.

Mrs. Hobbs reached out to a Japanese friend from her church, Reiko Wada, who translated the characters on the yellowed envelope. Mrs. Wada, who grew up in Kobe and has lived in the United States for four decades, took a photocopy of the envelope to the Japanese Consulate in New York to see if someone could track down the family. The consular officials agreed to help, Mrs. Wada said, but wanted to send the originals to Tokyo. Mr. Hobbs balked, afraid they would end up in some museum rather than with the family.

“That is out,” he recalled saying.

So Mrs. Wada, 70, who returns to Japan twice a year to see relatives, took along the photocopies on her next trip. She handed them over to the social security department in Tokyo, which sent them along to the office closest to Sanjo City, which tracked down Chie Takegawa’s new address. Then Sanjo City Hall officials found her.

“Three people came to me and asked if the letter was mine; I said yes,” Chie Takegawa recalled in an interview. “I was so surprised that my father had cherished the letter so much. I think he kept it with him to feel like his family was close.”

Every day since, she has placed a cup of water in front of a portrait drawing of her father. Offering rice to dead relatives is a common ritual in Japan; Chie Takegawa has tweaked it, knowing that soldiers on Iwo Jima nearly died of thirst.

“I felt my father had come back to life,” she told her younger sister. “I felt like he had returned to me.”

•

They met on a sunny day this spring at Mr. Hobbs’s home in Chestnut Hill, then decamped to a luncheon at a nearby country club with their children, Boston’s Japanese consul general and some foreign reporters. Until then, Mr. Hobbs had fixated on the search for the Japanese soldier’s family. But when he saw Yoko Takegawa, her face told an achingly personal story.

“When she walked out of the car and came over and gave me a hug, it hit me,” Mr. Hobbs said. “It meant so much to her. I had done something that I didn’t even realize would mean so much to anybody. I just thought it was a collector’s item.”

Since boyhood, Mr. Hobbs had avoided symbols of death — funerals, cemeteries, reading obituaries of anyone other than friends. But not so long ago, urged by his wife, he visited his mother’s grave to scrub the moss off her headstone.

“I suddenly realized I remembered my mother,” Mr. Hobbs recalled, and the memory spilled out.

Mother and son were hunting for turtles from a canoe on a pond in Massachusetts. He spotted a turtle on a log, and his mother, holding a wide net, trapped it inside. “She said, with a grin, ‘Whichever way he goes, we’ve got him,’ ” Mr. Hobbs said. “And that’s all I remember about my mother.”

For Yoko Takegawa and Mr. Hobbs, memories of the war — the hostilities between the two powers, the atomic bombs, the brutality of Iwo Jima — had long since faded. It was a more personal hardship — the loss of a parent — that bound them together in kinship that afternoon in Chestnut Hill.

“Mr. Hobbs has such a beautiful heart,” she said. “It was from this heart he saved for me the photograph and picture.”

Haniyeh warns against concessions to Israel

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday warned against making any concessions to Israel concerning Jerusalem or the right of return of Palestinian refugees during the US-hosted talks. "No one has been given a mandate to renounce Al-Quds or the refugees," Haniyeh said during a speech to mark the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

"No one, not even the Palestine Liberation Organization or anyone else, has been mandated to accept any agreement that will undermine the rights of the Palestinian people," the Hamas leader added.

Tuesday's US-hosted three-way meeting will be held despite the failure last week by American envoy George Mitchell to wrest a compromise deal on the Israeli settlements.

Syria and Turkey cancel entry visa for visiting both countries

Passport-holding Turkish citizens no longer need an entry visa to visit Syria for tourism for 90 days or less, starting from September 18, the Syrian Interior Ministry announced in a statement on Saturday.

Vice versa, Syrian citizens who carry valid passports of any kind can travel to Turkey without an entry visa, also starting from September 18, as long as their visits do not exceed 90 days, according to the official statement.

The decision was taken after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to cancel visa requirements between the two countries during Assad's visit to Istanbul on Sept. 16, the statement said.

However, Turkish citizens, who wish to visit Syria for more than 90 days, have to procure an entry visa from Syrian embassies and consulate in Turkey. Both Syrian and Turkish citizens must make sure that their passports are still valid before planning any trips, the ministry noted.

On Friday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that Turkey has put the decision to cancel entry visa requirements for Syrian passport holders into effect.

Exclusive: Hamas leader interview

Ken Livingstone

In a world exclusive, Ken Livingstone discusses religion, violence and the chances for peace with the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal

September 19, 2009

The key to peace in the Middle East is restoration of international law and the recognition of the right of both Palestinians and Israeli Jews to live in peace and security side by side. As President Obama says, there is no peace process today. Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, continues to extend illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and maintain a near-complete blockade of Gaza. Palestinians fire ineffectual rockets into Israel. Israel regularly attacks Palestinian territories with modern weapons.

No major conflict can be resolved without each side talking to the other. That was the case in South Africa, Ireland and countless other situations where people said they would never talk to their opponents. I was vilified in the Eighties for saying that, to resolve the Irish conflict, you had to talk to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

In the Middle East, peace can only be achieved through discussion between the elected representatives of both the Israelis and the Palestinians - and that means Hamas, which won a big majority in the last Palestinian parliamentary election, as well as Fatah. This does not mean that I agree with the views of Hamas, Fatah or the government of Israel. Far from it: I do not. For example, I think a number of passages in the original Hamas charter are unacceptable and should be repudiated. Many observers believe that this is also the view of some in Hamas.

Yet, for too many people, Hamas as an organization remains opaque. What they know about it is derived from a hostile media; it has no face. Most would probably think its leader is some disturbed Osama Bin Laden figure. In fact, al-Qaeda's supporters in Gaza are so hostile to Hamas that they have declared war on it.

For these reasons, I thought it important to interview the de facto leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, who lives in exile in Syria. Not every issue is clear. But at the beginning of any peace process, what matters most is engagement. Dialogue is necessary to get to clarity and mutual understanding. Sinn Fein did not answer every question at the beginning and neither does Binyamin Netanyahu today. The answers from Meshal come at a time of heightened tensions and renewed death threats against him, adding to the permanent danger of assassination bids not only by the Israelis, but also al-Qaeda supporters in the region.

I hope this interview will help to make the case for the dialogue that is needed, which I believe is inevitable. It is simply a question of how much suffering there will be, on both sides, before we get there.

Ken Livingstone: Could you explain a little about your childhood and the experiences that shaped your development into the person you are today?

Khaled Meshal: I was born in the West Bank village of Silwad near Ramallah in 1956. In my early age, I learned from my father how he was part of the Palestinian revolution against the British mandate in Palestine in the Thirties and how he fought, alongside other Palestinians using primitive weapons, against the well-equipped and trained Zionist gangs attacking Palestinian villages in 1948.

I lived in Silwad for 11 years until the 1967 war, when I was forced with my family, like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, to leave home and settle in Jordan. That was a shocking experience I will never forget.

KL: What happened to you after the war?

KM: Soon afterwards, I left Jordan for Kuwait, where my father had already been working and living since before 1967. After completing my primary education in 1970, I joined the prestigious Abdullah al-Salim Secondary School. In the early Seventies, it was a hub of intense political and ideological activity.

During my second year at al-Salim school, I joined the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun). Upon finishing my fourth year successfully I secured admission to Kuwait University, where I studied for a BSc degree in physics.

Kuwait University had an active branch of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS), which had been under the absolute control of the Fatah movement. I and my fellow Islamists decided, in 1977, to join GUPS, which we had previously shunned, and contest its leadership election. However, working from within GUPS proved impossible; we felt constantly impeded and realized we Islamists would never be given a chance. By 1980, two years after I graduated, my juniors decided to leave GUPS and form their own Palestinian association on campus.

Many of the students had become disillusioned with the Palestinian leadership, who seemed intent on settling for much less than what they had grown up dreaming of, namely the complete liberation of Palestine and the return of all the refugees to their homes.

KL: What is the situation in Gaza today?

KM: Gaza today is under siege. Crossings are closed most of the time and for months victims of the Israeli war on Gaza have been denied ­access to construction materials to rebuild their destroyed homes. Schools, hospitals and homes in many parts of the Gaza Strip are in need of rebuilding. Tens of thousands of people remain homeless. As winter approaches, the conditions of these victims will only get worse in the cold and rain. One and a half million people are held hostage in one of the biggest prisons in the history of humanity. They are unable to travel freely out of the Strip, whether for medical treatment, for education or for other needs. What we have in Gaza is a disaster and a crime against humanity perpetrated by the Israelis. The world community, through its silence and indifference, colludes in this crime.

KL: Why do you think Israel is still imposing the siege on Gaza?

KM: The Israelis claim that the siege is for security reasons. The real intention is to pressure Hamas by punishing the entire population. The sanctions were put in place soon after Hamas won the Palestinian elections in January 2006. While security is one of their concerns, it is not the main motivation. The primary objective is to provoke a coup against the results of the democratic elections that brought Hamas to power. The Israelis and their allies seek to impose failure on Hamas by persecuting the people. This is a hideous and immoral endeavor. Today, the siege continues despite the fact that we have, for the past six months, observed a ceasefire. Last year, a truce was observed from June to December 2008. Yet the siege was never lifted, and the sanctions remained in place. Undermining Hamas is the main objective of the siege. The Israelis hope to turn the people of Gaza against Hamas by increasing the suffering of the entire population of the Strip.

KL: How many supporters of Hamas and elected representatives of Hamas are there in prison in Israel? Have they all been charged and convicted of crimes?

KM: Out of a total of 12,000 Palestinian captives in Israeli detention, around 4,000 are Hamas members. These include scores of ministers and parliamentarians (Palestinian Legislative Council members). Around ten have recently been released, but about 40 PLC members remain in detention. Some have been given sentences, but many are held in what the Israelis call administrative detention. The only crime these people are accused of is their association with Hamas' parliamentary group. Exercising one's democratic right is considered a crime by Israel. All these Palestinians are brought before an Israeli system of justice that has nothing to do with justice. The Israeli judiciary is an instrument of the occupation. In Israel, there are two systems of justice: one applies to Israelis and another applies to the Palestinians. This is an apartheid regime.

KL: What part, if any, do other states and insti­tutions, such as the US, the EU, Britain, Egypt, or the Palestinian Authority, play in the blockade of Gaza?

KM: The blockade of Gaza would never have succeeded had it not been for the collusion of regional and international powers.

KL: How do you think the blockade can be lifted?

KM: In order for the blockade to be lifted, the rule of international law must be respected. The basic human rights of the Palestinians and their right to live in dignity and free from persecution would have to be acknowledged. There has to be an international will to serve justice and uphold the basic principles of international human rights law. The international community would have to free itself from the shackles of Israeli pressure, speak the truth and act accordingly.

KL: Israel says that the bombing and invasion of Gaza last year was in response to repeated breaking of the ceasefire by Hamas and the firing of rockets into southern Israel. Is this the case?

KM: The Israelis are not telling the truth. We ­entered into a truce deal with Israel from 19 June to 19 December 2008. Yet the blockade was not lifted. The deal entailed a bilateral ceasefire, lifting the blockade and opening the crossings. We fully abided by the ceasefire while Israel only partially observed it, and towards the end of the term it resumed hostilities. Throughout that ­period, Israel maintained the siege and only intermittently opened some of the crossings, ­allowing no more than 10 per cent of the basic needs of the Gazan population to get through.
Israel killed the potential for renewing the truce because it deliberately and repeatedly violated it.

I have always informed my western visitors, including the former US president Jimmy Carter, that the moment Hamas is offered a truce that
includes lifting the blockade and opening the crossings, Hamas will adopt a positive stance. So far, no one has made us any such offer. As far as we are concerned, the blockade amounts to a declaration of war that warrants self-defense.

KL: What are the ideology and goals of Hamas?

KM: Our people have been the victims of a colonial project called Israel. For years, we have suffered various forms of repression. Half of our people have been dispossessed and are denied the right to return to their homes, and half live under an occupation regime that violates their basic human rights. Hamas struggles for an end to occupation and for the restoration of our people's rights, including their right to return home.

KL: What is your view of the cause of the conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinians?

KM: The conflict is the outcome of aggression and occupation. Our struggle against the Israelis is not because they are Jewish, but because they invaded our homeland and dispossessed us. We do not accept that because the Jews were once persecuted in Europe they have the right to take our land and throw us out. The injustices suffered by the Jews in Europe were horrible and criminal, but were not perpetrated by the Palestinians or the Arabs or the Muslims. So, why should we be punished for the sins of others or be made to pay for their crimes?

KL: Do you believe that Israel intends to continue to expand its borders?

KM: Israel does not, officially, have stated borders. When Israel was created in our homeland 62 years ago, its founders dreamed of a "Greater Israel" that extended from the Nile to the Euphrates. Expansionism manifested itself on different occasions: in 1956, in 1967 and later on in the occupation of parts of Lebanon in the Eighties. Arab weakness, Israeli military superiority, the support given to Israel by the western powers, and the massacres it was prepared to commit against unarmed civilians in Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon, enabled it to expand from time to time. Although expansionism still lurks in the minds of many Israelis, it would seem that this is no longer a practical option. Lebanese and Palestinian resistance has forced Israel to withdraw unilaterally from lands it had previously occupied through war and aggression. While in the past Israel was able to defeat several Arab armies, today it faces formidable resistance that will not only check its expansionism but also, in time, force it to relinquish more of the land that it illegally occupies.

KL: What are your principal goals? Is Hamas primarily a political or a religious organisation?

KM: Hamas is a national liberation movement. We do not see a contradiction between our Islamic identity and our political mission. While we engage the occupiers through resistance and struggle to achieve our people's rights, we are proud of our religious identity that derives from Islam. Unlike the experience of the Europeans with Christianity, Islam does not provide for, demand or recognize an ecclesiastical authority. It simply provides a set of broad guidelines whose detailed interpretations are subject to and the product of human endeavor (ijtihad).

KL: Are you committed to the destruction of Israel?

KM: What is really happening is the destruction of the Palestinian people by Israel; it is the one that occupies our land and exiles us, kills us,
incarcerates us and persecutes our people. We are the victims, Israel is the oppressor, and not vice versa.

KL: Why does Hamas support military force in this conflict?

KM: Military force is an option that our people resort to because nothing else works. Israel's conduct and the collusion of the international community, whether through silence or indifference or actual embroilment, vindicate armed resistance. We would love to see this conflict resolved peacefully. If occupation were to come to an end and our people enabled to exercise self-determination in their homeland, there would then be no need for any use of force. The reality is that nearly 20 years of peaceful negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis have not restored any of our rights. On the contrary, we have incurred more suffering and more losses as a result of the one-sided compromises made by the Palestinian negotiating party.

Since the PLO entered into the Oslo peace deal with Israel in 1993, more Palestinian land in the West Bank has been expropriated by the Israelis to build more illegal Jewish settlements, expand existing ones or construct highways for the exclusive use of Israelis living in these settlements. The apartheid wall that the Israelis erected along the West Bank has consumed large areas of the land that was supposed to be returned to the Palestinians according to the peace deal.

The apartheid wall and hundreds of checkpoints turned the West Bank into isolated enclaves like cells in a large prison, which makes life intolerable.

Jerusalem is constantly tampered with in order to alter its landscape and identity, and hundreds of Palestinian homes have been destroyed inside the city and around it, making thousands of Palestinians homeless in their own homeland. Instead of releasing Palestinian prisoners, the Israelis have arrested an additional 5,000 Palestinians since the Annapolis peace conference in 2007 - actions that testify to the fact they simply aren't interested in peace at all.

KL: Does Hamas engage in military activity outside Palestine?

KM: No; since its establishment 22 years ago, Hamas has confined its field of military operation to occupied Palestine.

KL: Do you wish to establish an Islamic state in Palestine in which all other religions are subordinate?

KM: Our priority as a national liberation movement is to end the Israeli occupation of our homeland. Once our people are free in their land and enjoy the right to self-determination, they alone have the final say on what system of governance they wish to live under. It is our firm belief that Islam cannot be imposed on the people. We shall campaign, in a fully democratic process, for an Islamic agenda. If that is what the people opt for, then that is their choice. We believe that Islam is the best source of guidance and the best guarantor for the rights of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

KL: Does Hamas impose Islamic dress in Gaza? For example, is it compulsory in Gaza for women to wear the hijab, niqab or burqa?

KM: No. Intellectually, Hamas derives its vision from the people's culture and religion. Islam is our religion and is the basic constituent of our culture. We do not deny other Palestinians the right to have different visions. We do not impose on the people any aspects of religion or social conduct. Features of religion in Gaza society are genuine and spontaneous; they have not been imposed by any authority other than the faith and conviction of the observant.

KL: It is suggested that the division in the Palestinian people between the West Bank and Gaza and between Fatah and Hamas, which obviously weakens their position, came about because Hamas seized power by force in Gaza. Is this true and how do you explain this division?

KM: Undoubtedly, division does weaken the Palestinians and harms their cause. However, the division is caused not by Hamas, but by the insistence of certain international and regional parties on reversing the results of Palestinian democracy. It dismayed them that Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people.

The division is compounded by the existence of a Palestinian party that seeks empowerment from those same regional and international parties, including the US and Israel, that wish to see Hamas out of the arena. Soon after its victory in the election of January 2006, every effort was exerted to undermine the ability of Hamas to govern.

When these efforts failed, General Keith Dayton, of the United States army, who currently serves as US security co-ordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, was dispatched to Gaza to plot a coup against the Hamas-led national unity government that came out of the Mecca agreement of 2007. The plot prompted Hamas in Gaza to act in self-defense in the events of June 2007. The claim that Hamas carried out a coup is baseless because Hamas was leading the democratically elected government. All it did was act against those who were plotting a coup against it under the command and guidance of General Dayton.

KL: Do those of other political or religious views such as Fatah enjoy democratic freedoms in Gaza? What is the situation of Hamas members in the West Bank territories controlled by Fatah?

KM: Some Palestinian factions have been inspired by Arab nationalism, others by Marxism or Leninism, and others by liberalism. While we strongly believe that these ideas are alien to our people and have failed to meet their aspirations, we insist that the people are the final arbiter on whom they wish to lead them and by which system they desire to be governed. Thus, democracy is our best option for settling our internal Palestinian differences. Whatever the people choose will have to be respected.

We endeavor to the best of our ability to protect the human rights and civil liberties of the affiliates of Fatah and all the other factions within the Gaza Strip. In contrast, the Palestinians in the West Bank under Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah continue to be denied their basic rights. General Dayton is in the West Bank supervising the ­severe and brutal crackdown on Hamas and other Palestinian groups. More than 1,000 political prisoners, including students, university professors and professionals in all fields are hunted down, detained and tortured, sometimes to death, by the US-, British- and EU-trained and -sponsored Palestinian Authority's security force.

KL: Do you believe it is possible to reunite the Palestinian people? If so, how do you think this could be done and within what kind of timescale?

KM: It is possible to reunite the Palestinians. In order for this to happen two things are needed. First, foreign interventions and demands must stop. The Palestinian people should be left to deal with their own differences without external pressure. Second, all Palestinian parties must respect the rules of the democratic game and submit to the results of its process.

KL: Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel is frequently cited as an insuperable obstacle to negotiations and a peace settlement.

KM: This issue is only used as a pretext. Israel does not recognize the rights of the Palestinian people, yet this is not raised as an obstacle to
Israel being internationally recognized nor to it being allowed to take part in talks. The reality is that Israel is the one that occupies the land and possesses superior power. Rather than ask the Palestinians, who are the victims, it is Israel, who is the oppressor, who should be asked to recognize the rights of the Palestinians.

In the past, Yasser Arafat recognized Israel but failed to achieve much. Today, Mahmoud Abbas recognizes Israel, but we have yet to see any of the promised dividends of the peace process.

Israel concedes only under pressure. In the absence of any tangible pressure on Israel by the Arabs or by the international community, no settlement will succeed.

KL: Do you have a "road map" of interim steps which could realistically lead to a peaceful settlement of the conflict? Do you think Jews, Muslims and Christians can one day live together in peace in the Holy Land?

KM: We do, in Hamas, believe that a realistic peaceful settlement to the conflict will have to begin with a ceasefire agreement between the two sides based on a full withdrawal of Israel from all the territories occupied in 1967. Israeli intransigence and the lack of will to act on the part of the international community are what ­impede this settlement. We believe that only once our people are free and back in their land will they be able to determine the future of the conflict.

It should be reiterated here that we do not resist the Israelis because they are Jews. As a matter of principle, we do not have problems with the Jews or the Christians, but do have a problem with those who attack us and oppress us. For many centuries, Christians, Jews and Muslims coexisted peacefully in this part of the world. Our society never witnessed the sort of racism and genocide that Europe saw until recently against "the other". These issues started in Eur­ope. Colonialism was imposed on this region by Europe, and Israel was the product of the oppression of the Jews in Europe and not of any such problem that existed in the Muslim land.

KL: What role do you think that other countries and organizations, in particular the US, EU and Britain, are currently playing in the Israel/ Palestine conflict and the divisions between the Palestinians?

KM: The role played by all these has thus far been negative. The attitude towards Israeli crimes against our people has been either silence or collusion. The policies and positions adopted by these parties have contributed to the Palestinian division or augmented it. On the one hand, conditions are stipulated that have the effect of torpedoing unity talks and reconciliation efforts. On the other hand, some of these international parties are directly embroiled in suppressing our people in the West Bank. The US and the EU provide funding, training and guidance to build a Palestinian security apparatus specialized in the persecution of critics of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

We have particularly been concerned about reports that the British government, directly as well as indirectly by means of security firms and the services of retired army, police and in­telligence officers, is fully involved in the programme led by General Dayton against Hamas in the West Bank.

KL: What should countries such as the US and Britain do to assist a peaceful settlement?

KM: They should simply uphold international law - the occupation is illegal, the annexation of East Jerusalem is illegal, the settlements are illegal, the apartheid wall is illegal, and the siege of Gaza is illegal. Yet nothing is done.

KL: What relations does Hamas wish to have with the rest of the world, and, for example, with Britain?

KM: Hamas defends a just cause. For this purpose, it desires to open up to the world. The movement seeks to establish good relations and to conduct constructive dialogue with all those concerned with Palestine.

Popular resistance lives on in Gaza

Eva Bartlett, In Gaza

September 19, 2009

On 15 September, we join farmers and residents, including a contingent of women, youths and men, in a non-violent walk to the border region east of Beit Hanoun in the north of Gaza, singing and chanting as they march past Israeli army razed fields and destroyed water tanks and cisterns. The march is in the tradition of popular resistance in Palestine, more widely known worldwide in the villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin, but equally practiced all over occupied Palestine, including Gaza, in the simplest of acts: farming and accessing land which the Israeli authorities’ policies continue to attempt to render barren and void of Palestinian life.

[In the two well-known occupied West Bank regions, Bil'in and Ni'lin, the Israeli occupation army has ramped things up to such a violent suppression of non-violent voices that the April 17th killing of Bil'in villager, Basem Abu Rahme (29, strong, gentle, slain by an Israeli-soldier-shot, high-velocity tear gas canister to the chest from a close distance) , was the 18th murder of non-violent protesters against the separation Wall (11 of these murdered were under 18 years; 7 were 15 years old or under).]

The Beit Hanoun protesters’ message: for Israeli soldiers to stop targeting farmers, for Israeli authorities to end the (intentional) practice of driving Palestinian farmers off of their land. They call also for access to water, highlighting that in that region all but a single water source have been destroyed. This tank serves 40 dunams (1 dunam is 1,000 square metres) of farmland.

What has led these citizens to take up flags and placards? An on-going series of Israeli army targeted-shootings, tank and bulldozer invasions, destruction of farmland, and kidnapping of Palestinian civilians, rendering even the simple act of tending trees on farmland impossible or highly dangerous, risking injury or death from Israeli gunfire.

An exaggeration?

Since the end of Israel’s 23 day winter massacre of Gaza, another eight Palestinian civilians have been killed in the Strip’s border regions, including four minors (3 boys and 1 girl) and one mentally disabled adult. Another 28 Palestinians, including eight minors (7 boys, 1 girl) and 2 women, have been injured by Israeli shooting and shelling, including by the use of 'flechette’ dart-bombs on civilian areas.

It’s an apt name and a struggle that goes back months, years, but gets almost no recognition in the international corporate media. Neither civilian deaths while farming, nor the steady non-violent resistance to Israeli land annexation seem to be sensational enough.

But while these Beit Hanoun civilians are unarmed, they are not naïve, not passive.

"Buhrrrah, wa dam, nafdiq ya Falasteen: Our soul and blood, we sacrifice for you Palestine," they chant.

They tell us their first choice is to live and farm peacefully in their region near the border to Israel. But if it comes to it, they will die on their land, for their land, for their families, while farming.

They have little-to-no choice.

With Gaza’s borders firmly sealed shut under the internationally-complicit, Israeli-led and Egyptian-backed siege on Gaza, there is no option for emigration, no option for work in Israel or Egypt, no option to start up new businesses importing goods…

When considering these civilians and farmers, it is imperative to recognize that 95% of Gaza’s industry has been shut down by Israeli attacks and the siege. That roughly one third of Gaza’s farmland has been swallowed by a no-go, Israeli-imposed 'buffer zone’ in which Israeli soldiers reserve the right to shoot-to-kill.

Roughly a decade ago, Israeli authorities unilaterally established an off-limits 'buffer zone’ on the 150 metres of land extending along the Green Line border between Gaza and Israel. Since inception, the 'buffer zone’ has swollen to over 1 km in the east and 2 km in the north (during and immediately after Israel’s 23 day massacre of Gaza in winter 2008/2009), to the present 300 metre off-limits area (heralded in May 2009 by the dropping of leaflets which stated:

"The Israeli Defence Forces repeat their alert forbidding the coming close to the border fence at a distance less than 300 metres. Who gets close will subject himself to danger whereby the IDF will take necessary procedures to drive him away which will include shooting when necessary."

The 'buffer zone’ swallows prime, fertile agricultural land, cutting off another means of self-sustenance in a Strip that has been under siege since after Hamas’ election in 2006.

International bodies, including the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the World Food Program (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO) note that between 35% to 60% of Gaza’s agricultural industry has been destroyed and rendered useless [from the winter Israeli massacre of Gaza and from various Israeli invasions, attacks, burning of crops, and the impact of the siege].

Whereas formerly Gaza production met half the Strip’s agricultural needs, the effects of attacks and siege on Gaza has devolved the agricultural sector to what the Gaza-based Agricultural Development Association of Gaza aptly cited as a "destruction of all means of life."

We pass farmers on a donkey cart loaded with plastic jugs filled with water. They ask how they are supposed to water, let alone reach, the paltry few trees on their land near the 'buffer zone’.

We continue walking, getting a close look at the heaps of rubble which were water tanks and wells. The march reaches a larger well, it’s covering now at a wounded 45 degree slant, the sweet water within off-limits to farmers and their trees.

While speeches are made, pledging to continue to farm, continue to non-violently resist this flagrant Israeli bullying and land-grab policy, some of the weathered farmers in the area approach, keen to share their miseries to those who would listen.

Salem As Saed is 59, has 4.5 dunams of land which once held orange and olive trees until occupational bulldozers ground them to the earth. He has 17 children who he is unable to support; they are all dependent on food-aid handouts.

Awad, (55) has 17 in family and no means of income. His land has been razed, water sources destroyed. Of the 93 dunams of trees he once had, the vast majority have been destroyed. Awad has planted new trees, but these are scant in number and failing from want of water.

He has a further 30 dunams closer to the border, which he cannot access, has not accessed in years. Two years ago, Awad was shot by Israeli soldiers in the area of the Israeli watch tower at the border. He says that he was working with his son some 500 metres from the fence when the Israeli soldiers began shooting without warning. He was hit by a bullet to his inner thigh; his son was abducted and imprisoned for 28 days.

The speeches end and demonstrators kneel, beginning to pray on their land.

The demonstration ends without incident, though the daily dangers remain once the cameras are gone.

As we walk back towards Beit Hanoun, we discuss some those recently assassinated and injured in the buffer zones at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

On the morning of 9 September, and also in the Beit Hanoun border region, Maysara al Kafarna, a 24 year old from Beit Hanoun, was shot in the foot by Israeli soldiers at the Green Line border between Gaza and Israel. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) notes that the youth was 350 metres from the border fence when targeted.

PCHR reports that a few hours later, at 10 am, Israeli soldiers invaded as deeply as 700 metres into areas north of Beit Hanoun, firing at homes and farmland.

Five days prior, Israeli soldiers shot dead a 14 year old boy, targeting him with a bullet to the head. PCHR reports that in the afternoon of 4 September Ghazi Al Zaneen and family were walking in the northeastern Beit Hanoun region to agricultural land they owned 500 metres from the border when –with no warning messages or warning shots –Israeli soldiers opened sustained fire at the family, the last bullets hitting the boy and the family car as the father evacuated his son. Critically injured, Ghazi died the following day.

On 2 September, according to PCHR, when Israeli occupation forces invaded 150 metres into northern Beit Hanoun, Palestinian resistance confronted the invasion, defending themselves against the occupiers’ invasion. In the firing that ensued, a 17 year old, 'Abdul 'Aziz al-Masri, living in the region was shot in the foot. Not farming, the youth was subject to danger due to the Israeli invasion.

A week prior to that, on 23 August, PCHR reports Israeli soldiers opened fire on areas to the east of Beit Hanoun, shooting 63 year old Fawzi Ali Wassem in the thigh. The farmer was on agricultural land 1,800 metres from the border.

The morbid list of 'buffer zone’ fatalities and injuries continues in Beit Hanoun regions (and throughout the Gaza Strip):

-Saleh Mohammed al-Zummara, 66, injured by a gunshot to the left hand and 'Ali Mohammed al-Zummara, 65, injured by shrapnel in the back from Israeli soldiers’ firing on 3 June, according to PCHR.

- Ziad Salem abu Hadayid, 23, is shot in the legs when Israeli soldiers shoot on Palestinian farmers on 20 May, according to the Al Mezan centre for Human Rights.

-We find Ahmed Abu Hashish’s decomposed body, missing since 21 April, is found shot dead, presumably by Israeli soldiers, in the eastern Beit Hanoun border region on 14 June. As we and Local Initiative volunteers search for then remove the body, we come under close and intense fire from the Israeli soldiers at the border. We are clearly, visibly unarmed; the shooting intensifies when the soldiers see that we have located the body. It is pure spite.

And this is without mentioning the equally brutal assaults on other regions along the 'buffer zone’. Nor Israeli soldiers’ intentional arson of Palestinian crops. Nor mentioning the abductions of civilians –the latest, 5 minors from Beit Lahiya’s bedouin village region. Abducted on 6 September as they herded their sheep and goats, they are:

1. Mohammed 'Arafat Abu Khousa, 17;

2. Sameh 'Abdul Qader Abu Hashish, 15;

3. Fraih Qassem Abu Hashish, 12;

4. 'Aa’ed Hazzaa’ Abu Hashish, 16; and

5. Ibrahim Shihda Abu Jarad, 17.

Look carefully at the faces in the above photos: these are the civilians facing the world’s fourth most powerful military. These are the people eeking a living or living in a region which has been arbitrarily cut off and assaulted by the state which purports to 'defend itself’. Look carefully, and hope that they are not among the next to be martyred by Israeli assaults.